Plasma display panels are currently expected to replace cathode ray tubes for many uses such as televisions, monitors, and other video displays. One important advantage of plasma display panels is that a relatively large display area can be provided with relatively minimal thickness as compared to cathode ray tubes.
The general construction of plasma display panels includes generally sheet-like front and back glass substrates having inner surfaces that oppose each other with a chemically stable gas hermetically sealed therebetween by a seal between the substrates at the periphery of the panel. Elongated electrodes covered by a dielectric layer are provided on both substrates with the electrodes on the front glass substrate extending transversely to the electrodes on the back glass substrate so as to thereby define gas discharge cells or pixels that can be selectively illuminated by an electrical driver of the plasma display panel. The panels can be provided with phosphors to enhance the luminescence and thus also the efficiency of the panels. The phosphors can also be arranged in pixels having several subpixels for respectively emitting the primary colors red, green, and blue to provide a full color plasma display panel.
In plasma display panels, it is becoming increasingly desirable to have larger display screens with more display lines and more intensity levels, with minimal power consumption. Known driving techniques for both color and monochrome alternating current plasma display panels include addressing periods in which charge quantities are retained by selected pixels, and sustain periods during which the charge quantities are excited to illuminate the selected pixels. During the sustain periods, the plasma display panel is driven by a bulk sustaining function which applies a uniform voltage waveform to the entire plasma display panel. The bulk sustained voltages are generated by an electrical circuit designed specifically for this purpose. During the addressing periods, individual row and column electrodes of the plasma display panel are selectably driven with voltages unique to the current image content of the plasma display panel. Selective address voltages are generated by driver integrated circuits which are specifically designed for direct connection to the plasma display panel electrodes.
As plasma display panels increase in size, number of display lines, and number of intensity levels, the power requirements of the driver circuits also increase. Energy recovery circuits are employed in plasma display panels to help reduce power consumption. Existing energy recovery circuits are used with bulk sustain electrode pairs in which two pulse generators provide sustained pulses with waveforms 180.degree. out of phase to each other. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,654,728 issued to Kanazawa et al. discloses bulk driver energy recovery circuits.
A primary disadvantage associated with existing driving techniques is the fact that the column or data electrode driver circuits are responsible for a very significant amount of the overall plasma display panel power consumption. This is because the data electrode driver outputs pulse at a much higher frequency than the bulk sustain driver outputs.